CHICAGO — It took about six months, but Joe Downing finally broke free from the pump.

The man from Sugar Grove, Ill., recently converted his 1996 Ford Escort to run on electricity, shrinking the estimated cost of his weekly commute from around $32 to about $10.

With the average price of gasoline in the Chicago area and elsewhere in the nation topping $4 a gallon last week, electric car owners who once were mere curiosities on society's fringes are now viewed with renewed interest as they zip alongside motorists suffering from skyrocketing fuel prices. The average price of regular, unleaded gasoline nationally hit a record $3.776 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA.

Downing spends less than $2.50 to recharge his car at home, but now he can do it for free at a charging station recently opened in Aurora, Ill., one of a handful of such places around Chicago.

At a BP gas station in Westchester, Ill., where a gallon of unleaded was $3.99 on Wednesday, Dave Goetz looked away from the pump to avoid the blur of numbers that eventually stopped at $56.42. An electric car has never seemed more enticing, he said.

"I think the mood of the people and the market is ripe for some kind of alternative," said Goetz, 50.

But for now, electric cars remain a rarity, available mostly to folks like Downing who have the time, money and know-how to convert their conventional vehicles to run on electricity.

Manufacturers are racing to bring electric cars to the market. Last week, Nissan Motor Co. announced plans to sell an electric car in the U.S. and Japan by 2010. General Motors also plans to sell the plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt by that same year. Wal-Mart has been weighing the possibility of selling gasoline-electric hybrid cars and plug-in automobiles at the big-box retailer's stores.

The Roadster, made by California-based Tesla Motors, is on the market, selling for about $100,000.

Converting conventional cars to run on electricity involves substantial investments in time and money. It costs $5,000 to $9,000 on average to convert a car to run entirely on electricity, although the federal government offers a grant to cover 80 percent of the cost, up to a $4,000 cap. It took Downing about six months, working nights and weekends, to convert his car.

Eric Schoonveld, 42, spent about $8,500 to convert his 1985 Porsche 944 to electric power — more than twice the cost of the car.

To recharge an electric vehicle, drivers simply pop open the energy-cap door, connect one end of an electrical extension cord into the vehicle and plug the other end into a wall outlet. A full recharge takes six to eight hours.

The effort to open more charging stations with designated parking spaces where owners can plug into the facility's power for free is aimed at counteracting perhaps the biggest downside of owning an electric car: They only travel, on average, about 55 miles per charge.

Schoonveld said he'd like to have more freedom to drive his electric car, but said most charging stations are at inconvenient locations.

"The problem with charging stations is that they aren't in places where people need to use them," Schoonveld said. "I use O'Hare (International Airport) all the time. I want one there."

And despite their advantages, there's still a stigma attached to electric cars. Many people view electric as tiny and slow. At the BP station, Goetz worried that his large frame would never fit inside one.

"I have no problem driving an electric car, or a car fueled on popcorn, but it's not going to be one of those small things," he said. "I'm a big guy and won't fit in those. I'll ride a bike before I do something like that."

But these days, people are converting all sorts of cars to run on electricity — trucks, vans, even sports cars. In his electric-powered Porsche convertible, Schoonveld, who is 6 feet 7, flies past other electric car owners who must check their egos at the door, he said.

"Everybody's passing them on the expressway and honking at them to get out of the way," Schoonveld said. "I wanted a car that I wasn't embarrassed to drive."